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The Gillard Government On 23 June 2010, after meetings throughout the evening between Julia Gillard and then Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, as well as ALP factional leaders, Rudd addressed the awaiting media at 10:30 pm AEST and announced that Gillard had asked Rudd to resign or hold a leadership ballot in the 115 member caucus the following day to determine the leadership of the Labor Party and hence the prime ministership of Australia. Rudd initially said he would challenge Gillard at the election. However, hours before the vote, he resigned as leader when it became apparent that he did not have enough support to overcome Gillard and keep his post. Gillard thus won the election unopposed. Shortly afterward, she was sworn in as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia by Governor-General Quentin Bryce. The same caucus meeting appointed Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan to succeed Gillard as Labor’s deputy leader, and hence Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. On the same day as being sworn in, Gillard in her opening address said that “It is my intention to lead a government that is focused each and every day on meeting the needs of working families around the country” and acknowledged that at times the Rudd Government “went off the tracks … I came to the view that a good Government was losing its way”, distancing herself from the Rudd government’s policies regarding problems with the Home Insulation Program, a significant delay to a planned carbon emissions reduction scheme, a move to introduce mandatory Internet filtering, and the introduction of the Resource Super Profits Tax. See: Wikipedia 2010-06-24 Gillard Government
Former premier Morris Iemma savaged Mark Arbib, saying he had wrecked the prime ministership of Kevin Rudd in the same manner he had wrecked the NSW government. The MP for Fowler Julia Irwin said Mr Arbib “has a lot to answer, for the damage he has done to NSW Labor.” Ms Irwin said her fellow MPs were being pressured by factional leaders and trade union bosses, who had “got them to where they are”. “I’m sad to say that a lot of them are going to sell their souls,” she said. Although Mr Arbib was privately framing the coup as the work of the Victorian Right MPs David Feeney and Bill Shorten, he is known to have been in discussions for weeks. Some weeks ago he consulted powerbroker Graham Richardson as to whether he should shift the NSW Right’s support to Ms Gillard. | |||||||
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